Terms and Conditions

Updated: January 1, 2023

Your use of the Ship Gratitude Website (the "Website") is subject to the following terms and conditions (the “Terms”). These Terms constitute a legally-binding agreement made between you, whether personally or on behalf of an entity (“you”) and Ship Gratitude (“we,” “us” or “our”), concerning your access to and use of the Website.

It is important for you to take the time to read the Terms carefully. Your use of this Website indicates that you accept these Terms. You many not use this Website if you do not agree to these Terms.

We reserve the right to change, modify, add, or delete all or portions of these Terms at any time without notice. If we do this, we will post the changes to these Terms on this page and update the date at the top of the Terms, under the page title. Your continued use of the Website and/or any materials (“Materials”) constitutes your acceptance of any and all changed, modified, or additional Terms. If you do not agree to abide by these or any future Terms, do not use the Website or Materials. It is your responsibility to regularly refer back to this page to determine if there have been changes, modifications or additions to the Terms, and to review them.

Ship Gratitude is a non-profit organization incorporated in the State of Minnesota in the United States.

Website Use and Access

In order to access the Website, you may be required to provide information about yourself (such as identification or contact information). You agree to provide accurate, true, correct, and up-to-date information and maintain the information at all times.

You agree to use the Website only as permitted by the Terms and subject to all applicable laws, regulations, and generally-accepted practices or guidelines.

You acknowledge, understand and agree that the Website and Materials are our proprietary property and all software, source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Website (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (collectively the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and trademark laws and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws of the United States, foreign jurisdictions, and international conventions.

You agree not to access (or attempt to access) the Website through any automated means (including but not limited to the use of scripts of web crawlers) or to reverse-engineer, decompile, copy or adapt any software or other code that is part of this Website.

You agree not to attempt to transmit to or via this Website any information that contains a virus, worm, trojan horse or other harmful or disruptive component.

You agree not to change, modify, delete, interfere with or misuse data contained on this Website and entered by or relating to any third-party user of this Website.

You agree that you will not engage in any activity that interferes with or disrupts the Website, or the servers and networks that are connected to the Website.

Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate written agreement with us, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, or resell any content on the Website for any purpose.

You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that we have no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any breach of your obligations under the Terms and for the consequences (including any loss or damage that we may suffer) of any such breach.

You acknowledge, understand and agree that if you, at the sole discretion of Ship Gratitude, are found to be in breach any of these Terms, your permission to use this Website and any Materials or Content connected thereto, automatically terminates, and that you are required to immediately destroy any downloads or printed extracts from this Website, to remove any hyperlinks to this Website from your devices, and to remove any “bookmarks” connecting to this Website from your devices.

Content

You acknowledge, understand and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback, or other information regarding the Website or our services ("Submissions") provided by you to us are non-confidential and shall become our sole property.

You acknowledge, understand and agree that (a) any Submission made by you is not confidential or proprietary information; (b) that Ship Gratitude is under no obligation to treat your Submissions as confidential or proprietary information; and (c) that Ship Gratitude may use Submissions for any commercial or other purpose, without any compensation or liability to you.  By posting Submissions, you automatically grant to Ship Gratitude, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, global license to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), distribute, create derivative works of and sublicense your Submissions for any and all purposes.  You understand that your Submissions may be used and republished.

We reserve the right to filter, modify, or delete any or all Content, but we have no obligation to do so.

Proprietary Rights

Ship Gratitude owns all legal right, title, and interest in and to the Website, Materials, and Contents including any intellectual property rights whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist. The Website may contain information that we designate as confidential, and you agree not to disclose such information without our prior written consent.

You may not use our trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, other distinctive brand features or any other Marks without our express written permission.

You may not remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary rights notices (including copyright or trademark notices) that may be affixed to or contained to Materials in connection with our services.

Materials contained in this Website may accordingly be downloaded, viewed and printed for use in the media, including print, broadcast and electronic media provided that Ship Gratitude is conspicuously attributed as the source and further provided that no trademark, copyright or other proprietary notices contained in or appearing on such Materials are removed in whole or in part.

You shall be responsible for obtaining all authorizations, consents and releases, and for paying all compensation required by applicable contracts or otherwise required by law.

Your use of the Materials shall not be derogatory towards or critical of Ship Gratitude or any officer, director, agent, employee, or affiliate. 

The Materials shall not be altered in any fashion unless expressly authorized by in writing by Ship Gratitude.

You shall indemnify and hold harmless Ship Gratitude, its officers, directors, agents, and employees from all loss, cost, damage, liability and expense, and reasonable attorneys’ fees that Ship Gratitude may incur by reason of your use of the Materials in any manner not authorized by these Terms.

Exclusions and limitations of liability

Your use of the services provided by Ship Gratitude is at your sole risk and the services are provided "as is" and "as available."

We cannot guarantee that this Website or the Websites which it links to/are linked to it will always be available to users. You should ensure that you have appropriate protection against viruses and other security arrangements in place when using the Internet.

If you download or otherwise obtain Materials through your use of the Website, you do so at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or other devices, or for any loss of data that results.

We do not represent or warrant to you that:

Your use of our services will meet your requirements.

Your use of our services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or free from error. Although every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information on this Website was accurate at the time of publication, it is subject to variation at any time without notice, and we do not warrant that any such information will be accurate or complete at any particular time or at all.

Where you rely on any information contained on this Website, you do so entirely at your own risk and you accept that all warranties, conditions and undertakings, express or implied, whether by common law, statute, regulation, trade usage, course of dealing or otherwise in connection with this Website are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law. We exclude all liability whatever, to the fullest extent permitted by law, in connection with any loss or damage resulting or arising from any non-availability or use of this Website or of any other Websites to which it links to/which are linked to it, or from reliance on the Contents of this Website or any other Websites to which it links to/which are linked to it.

No advice or information you obtain from us, whether through or from our services or not, will create any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms.

We expressly disclaim all warranties and conditions of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties and conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We will not be liable to you for any damages of any kind that may be incurred by you. This limitation on our liability will apply whether or not we have been advised of, or should have been aware of, the possibility of any such losses arising.

Nothing in these Terms shall exclude or limit our liability for losses that may not be excluded or limited by applicable law. Our liability will be limited to the maximum extent permitted by law in the State of Minnesota.

PRIVACY POLICY

We care about data privacy and security. Please review our Privacy Policy. By using the Website, you agree to be bound by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated fully into these Terms.

GOVERNING LAW; JURISDICTION

These Terms and your use of the Website are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Minnesota, without regard to its conflicts of law principles. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Hennepin, Minnesota, to resolve any legal matter arising from the Terms. However, we may apply for injunctive or declaratory relief in any jurisdiction.

MISCELLANEOUS

These Terms and any policies or operating rules posted by us on the Website constitute the entire agreement and understanding between you and us. Our failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. These Terms operate to the fullest extent permissible by law. We may assign any or all of our rights and obligations to others at any time. We shall not be responsible or liable for any loss, damage, delay, or failure to act caused by any cause beyond our reasonable control. If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms is determined to be unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms and does not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. There is no joint venture, partnership, employment or agency relationship created between you and us as a result of these Terms or the Website. You agree that these Terms will not be construed against us by virtue of having drafted them. You hereby waive any and all defenses you may have based on the electronic form of these Terms and the lack of signing by the parties hereto to execute these Terms.